Despite some recent conservation victories, Washington is mired in partisan bickering. The new 114th Congress has already jumped at the opportunity to weaken conservation, introducing several proposals making it harder to keep wildlands wild. The last few sessions of Congress have seen many bipartisan public lands bills fall victim to gridlock, and 2015 looks like it could be more of the same.

At a time when lawmakers’ actions seem at odds with some core American ideals, strong political leadership is critical. One of the clearest exercises of such leadership is the Antiquities Act—a law authorizing presidents to protect special places as national monuments if Congress won’t. Our nation’s history is full of great presidents who used it and other tools at their disposal in the name of conservation.

Given the climate in Washington, we thought we’d showcase a few of them.

By our admittedly subjective criteria, incorporating both the conservation standards of their times and the precedents set by their administrations’ words and deeds, these are the White House’s most prominent champions of public lands. As a sitting leader, President Barack Obama is not yet eligible for the list. However, especially given his designation of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in 2014, the president still has time to secure a place in the pantheon of wilderness champions.

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)

Photo: Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park, protected in 1932 under the Antiquities Act, which was originally signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt. (Credit: Grand Canyon National Park - Michael Quinn (NPS), flickr; portrait - Pach Brothers via Wikimedia Commons).

It was not the first time the government had protected land, but it set in motion a pattern of active natural stewardship that echoed over the next century. Roosevelt’s administration went on to establish more than 50 more bird reservations; preside over the creation of the National Forest Service and massive expansion of forest reserves; and sign the Antiquities Act into law, granting presidents the authority to protect natural and cultural landmarks as national monuments when Congress would not or could not get the job done (Roosevelt would use this method 18 times).

In all, the 26th president set aside over 230 million acres of land for conservation. Fittingly, more National Park Service units have been dedicated to him than any other American. Roosevelt’s acts in the service of wilderness could—and have—filled many volumes, and no list of White House conservation champions could credibly include any name other than his at the top.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)

Photo: Lyndon B. Johnson’s signing of the Wilderness Act in 1964 established the national wilderness system through which we still protect exceptional wild places. like Colorado’s Uncompahgre Wilderness. (Credit: Uncompahgre Wilderness - Bob Wick (BLM), flickr; portrait - U.S. Embassy New Delhi, flickr).

Though he spent only one elected term as the nation’s chief executive, Lyndon Johnson left an indelible mark on America’s public lands heritage. Within one year of taking office, he signed the Wilderness Act into law in 1964, establishing the framework to protect exceptional public lands at the highest level possible. That law immediately put 9 million acres of wild American lands into the National Wilderness Preservation System, and has since protected 100 million more.

If that had been his only conservation accomplishment, it would have sufficed—but President Johnson went on to establish the National Trails System and sign into law the Endangered Species Preservation Act and Land and Water Conservation Act. The latter, originally proposed by John F. Kennedy for the protection and upkeep of public lands, authorized a fund that has since helped add lands to Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountain national parks along with many other parks, refuges and forests.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945)

Photo: The founding of Olympic National Park in Washington was one of the major conservation accomplishments of the 1930s. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration pushed for the designation and signed it into law. (Credit: Olympic National Park - javi.velazquez, flickr; portrait - FDR Presidential Library & Museum, flickr).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is not as closely associated with conservation as his cousin Theodore, but he was still among the greatest champions of public lands our nation has ever known.

Fittingly, his most prominent accomplishment in that vein was part of the domestic initiative that made him a hero to generations of Americans. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of the first enacted programs of the New Deal, put millions to work building infrastructure in national parks and forests, ultimately planting billions of trees and combating soil erosion on 84 million acres of farmland.

Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)

Photo: Benjamin Harrison set aside land in Alaska that effectively formed one of the first national wildlife refuge. That area is now part of Katmai National Park and Preserve. (Credit: Katmai National Park - Mark Stevens, flickr; portrait - Political Graveyard/Portrait and Biographical Album of Washtenaw County, Michigan, 1891, flickr).

Like most presidents on this list, Benjamin Harrison’s protection of wild places can be attributed at least partly to an active, outdoor childhood. Fittingly, he was one of Theodore Roosevelt’s political heroes, and despite spending only a short time at the country’s helm, he had a significant impact on public lands stewardship.

The Forest Reserve Act of 1891, promoted by Harrison-era Interior Secretary John Noble and signed into law by Harrison himself, directly led to the preservation of 13 million acres, including America's first forest reserve in Yellowstone. Even more significantly, its provision allowing future presidents to establish forest reserves and empowered many wilderness champions to come.

Using Harrison’s Forest Reserve Act, President Cleveland inducted millions of wooded acres into the forest reserve system. The most famous of these were 13 new or expanded reserves protected in the final days of his second term, enraging timber tycoons, who dubbed them “Midnight Reserves” (conservationists called them the “Washington’s Birthday Reserves”). Earlier, in reaction to lackluster policing of poachers in Yellowstone and resultant outcry by the Theodore Roosevelt-founded Boone and Crockett Club, Cleveland signed into law the Act to Protect the Birds and Animals in Yellowstone National Park. The 24th president, a proud reformer renowned for his common-sense approach to governing, reportedly boasted of his accomplishments in the service of public lands well into his post-presidency years.

Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)

Photo: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, first protected as a national monument in Alaska by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. (Credit: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park - Bryan Petrtyl (NPS), flickr; portrait - Department of Defense/Department of the Navy via Wikimedia Commons).

Bill Clinton (1992-2000)

Photo: Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was one of many national monuments designated under the authority of the Antiquities Act by Bill Clinton. (Credit: Grand Staircase-Escalante - James Marvin Phelps, flickr; portrait - victoriabernal, flickr).

Following Jimmy Carter’s series of monument designations in 1978, the Antiquities Act fell into disuse for years. However, when the White House started exercising it again, it more than made up for lost time.

A military legend whose accomplishments in the White House are sometimes given short shrift, Ulysses S. Grant was another hero of young Theodore Roosevelt—who considered him the “father of the national parks,” per biographer Douglas Brinkley—for a reason.

John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)

Photo: Cape Cod National Seashore, protected by legislation signed into law by John F. Kennedy, has received funds from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, one of the late president’s major conservation initiatives. (Credit: Cape Cod National Seashore - Ralph Tiner (USFWS Northeast Region), flickr; portrait - University of Michigan School of Natural Resources & Environment, flickr).

​John F. Kennedy was gifted with only a few years in office before his life was tragically cut short, but he built a strong conservation legacy. His establishment of Delaware’s Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge under the authority of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act after a clash with that state’s governor showed he was not afraid to use the power of the office for the betterment of conservation, and some of his ideas were well ahead of their time: years before its passage, Kennedy spoke out in favor of a Youth Conservation Corps to “preserve our forests, stock our lakes and rivers, clear our streams and protect America's abundance of natural resources,” and, in the last year of his presidency, he proposed legislation to establish the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that reinvests some royalties from offshore oil and gas leases into public lands conservation. Later guided through Congress and signed into law by his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, it has supported tens of thousands of park projects and protected millions of acres of land—including Cape Cod National Seashore, an area beloved by the Kennedy family.

Thomas Jefferson’s spot on this list is assured by one deed alone: his commission of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to blaze a path west, surveying exotic plants, animals and landscapes then largely uncatalogued. The travel journals they kept, filled with tales of bison, grizzly bears and dramatic mountain peaks, helped trigger an enduring American fascination with wilderness.

It is fitting that the expedition was initiated by a nature-lover and day-to-day man of science. While conserving natural resources was anathema to his contemporaries, Jefferson prefigured movements to come in 1806, writing of his property, "We must use a good deal of economy in our wood, never cutting down new, where we can make the old do."

Despite his interest in cultivated land and determination to survey and appraise every corner of the country, another quote attributed to Jefferson opined on the virtues of uninhabited spaces as well: “our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.”

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

Photo: Abraham Lincoln signed a landmark law setting aside California’s Yosemite Valley for the public in 1864. This later led to the creation of Yosemite National Park. (Credit: Yosemite National Park - Daniel Parks, flickr; portrait - Matthew Brady/Marion Doss, flickr).

In 1864, Abraham Lincoln signed into law a bill setting aside the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to be administered by the state of California for "public use, resort, and recreation." As the nation was roiled by some of the bloodiest fighting of the Civil War, this news garnered little attention. However, it set a significant precedent: scenic land could suddenly be set aside for the enjoyment of future generations. At a time when the idea of public parks, let alone protected wilderness, was incredibly remote, this was a major development. Lincoln also founded the Department of Agriculture, later to include various iterations of the U.S. Forest Service.

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

Photo: Dinosaur National Monument, between Utah and Colorado, was designated as a national monument by Woodrow Wilson. (Credit: Dinosaur National Monument - Mark Stevens, flickr; portrait - Political Graveyard/Portrait and Biographical Album of Washtenaw County, Michigan, 1891, flickr).

Not typically listed among the conservationist presidents, perhaps owing partly to his role signing the infamous bill to dam the Hetch Hetchy Valley, Wilson was a significant wilderness figure nonetheless. He designated more national monuments than all but three other presidents, including the iconic Dinosaur National Monument between Utah and Colorado. Additionally, Wilson signed into law the act that created the National Park Service in 1916, allowing management of current and future parks and monuments. Wilson’s administration also created numerous new national forests and presided over the creation of several new national parks, including icons like Grand Canyon National Park (formerly a forest reserve and national monument), Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park and Alaska’s Mount McKinley National Park (the first ever in that state).